The Carpenter's Children (8 page)

‘It’s simple enough. You’re already twenty-four. Haven’t you had any thoughts of, er, of getting married? If you don’t mind me asking, Aaron.’

‘Oho, have you got someone in mind for me? If so, I hope she’s beautiful.’ Aaron smiled and closed his eyes as if in delighted anticipation.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, I’m quite serious. Surely you must have had
some
ideas about marriage and family life? Isn’t that an important part of your religion?’

‘Ah, you sound like my mother. And there’s the difficulty. You may have noticed that Jewish girls are not abundant in Everham and district. If I’d stayed in Elberfeld, I’d probably be a husband and father by now.’

‘But suppose you met someone you liked in Everham – a girl at the tennis club, for instance,’ persisted Ernest, thinking of Phyllis Bird who had become something of a flirt, and was at present walking out with Will Hickory, whose parents owned the bakehouse in North Camp.

‘You mean a Gentile girl? No, my friend, there was enough wailing and gnashing of teeth when Rachael married out and gave birth to two Christian children. To lose another, and a man, would be too much to inflict on the family.’

There was silence as a brightly coloured butterfly alighted on Aaron’s arm, and he lay absolutely still so as not to disturb it. He gave a long sigh, and Ernest wondered whether it was one of contentment, or was asking him to stop his questions; he was reluctant to pursue the matter, yet felt he needed to know the answer. Aaron must have read his mind, because
without dismissing the butterfly, he spoke again in an easy, matter-of-fact way.

‘It will rest with my mother – that is, if she and Father take my advice and return to England. In her absence my uncle Schelling will no doubt be instructed to write to a rabbi at a synagogue – in London, probably, where there’s a thriving Jewish quarter, and ask him to look out for a suitable young woman who is desperate to meet a country-loving, bicycling junior partner in an insurance firm. And then we’ll take it from there. Does that answer your question, Ernest old chap?’

‘Yes, I see. Thank you, Aaron.’

The butterfly flew away, and the subject was closed. Ernest was more or less satisfied, for there seemed to be no early likelihood of losing his friend to marriage. Not in the foreseeable future, anyway.

While Ernest sat in thought, Aaron had his own private deliberations. Dear old Ernest! At twenty he had little knowledge of the world, and was clearly totally inexperienced. Bless him, he was so tentative, so cautious, so
English
! It was typical of him to talk of marriage rather than of women in general, their relationship to men – their bodies, their soft breasts, their mysterious, exciting caves where a man might enter and cry out aloud with pleasure. It wasn’t that Aaron had much personal knowledge of these natural processes, especially since he had come to Everham, but he took it for granted that one day he
would indeed marry a pleasing Jewish woman, one he would find for himself or have found for him; what, after all, would it matter?

By which it might be assumed that in spite of his superior knowledge, Aaron Pascoe had never truly been in love.

‘Isabel’s off to London next week,’ Tom Munday told Eddie Cooper over their Friday night pint at the Tradesmen’s Arms.

‘Oh, ah?’ Eddie waited to hear more. Just about all of North Camp knew of the young curate’s banishment to a London parish two years ago, and there were those who said it served him right for carrying on with a sixteen-year-old girl. He had not been seen or heard of since, and the affair was thought to be over. Eddie, however, had known of the censored correspondence, and lately Tom had confided to him that he had told Isabel she was now free to visit the Rev. Mark Storey in his East London parish. Mark had written to her and to Tom in happy acknowledgement, and an arrangement was made for her to go up at half-term, from next Friday to Monday. A married couple in Mark’s congregation had agreed to give Miss Munday lodging in their home, and he had paid them in advance.

Tom relayed this information to Eddie who nodded his head in approval.

‘Yeah, if they both feel the same after all this
time, I reckon they deserve to see each other again,’ he said. ‘Girls are getting married at her age. And after all, he’s a clergyman, and she’s older now. Good girl, your Isabel.’

Tom Munday smiled, and returned a complimentary remark about Eddie’s daughter.

‘Mrs Yeomans thinks the world o’ your Mary, I hear – the way she helps her with the baby and cooks meals for them all.’

‘Yeah, she’s good with little Billy, same age as our Freddie, goin’ on for two. Never comes to see us, though, not on birthdays or Christmas or anything. I drop in at Yeomans’ farm now and then, to see her and have a word with her, so at least I know she’s being looked after, like.’

‘No trouble with young Dick these days, then?’

‘Not a thing since I had a word with old Yeomans, and he must’ve told his wife. They don’t want any trouble, either, so Dick has to behave himself. He’ll be taking over the farm one o’ these days, and they don’t want him to marry for a year or two. Mind you, he could do worse than my Mary.’

‘Yeah,’ responded Tom thoughtfully. ‘We none of us know what the future holds for any of our children – and I reckon there’s not a lot we can do for them as they get older and go their own ways.’

‘Your Ernest’s still at home, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, his mother’s happy to go on cooking and washing for him,’ answered Tom with a shrug. ‘He
pays her, of course – well, he can afford to, he’s got a good job with that insurance firm.’

‘Jews, aren’t they?’

‘Yes, but that doesn’t make any difference. They keep to their religion and Ernest keeps to his, and apart from that you’d think he was one of the family. No hanging round pubs and chasing after girls for our Ernest!’

‘Good,’ said Eddie who’d heard that Ernest Munday and the junior partner in Schelling and Pascoe were as thick as thieves.

The train had passed through Clapham Junction and Vauxhall, and the tracks were converging as it approached the terminus. Isabel’s heart beat a little faster as she glimpsed the Thames with Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament on the other side. London! In minutes she would be at Waterloo, where Mark Storey had said he would await her at the ticket barrier.

‘I’ll come up with you, Isabel,’ her father had said, but she had refused his offer. She was
grown-up
now, and wanted no witnesses to her meeting with her intended husband. Things just might be awkward, for there were undoubtedly uncertainties; their declaration of love had taken place on one afternoon, a time span of less than two hours, to be weighed against a separation of two years, and Mark might be disappointed in this older Isabel. How would he greet her?

The moment had arrived. Isabel took hold of her suitcase and stepped down from the carriage. She was a long way from the ticket barrier; would he be there?

‘
Isabel!
’ He was here on the platform, only a few yards away! She looked up at a dark-suited figure with a clerical collar, older than she remembered, partly due to his having grown sideboards, but there were the beginnings of deep grooves from his nose to the corners of his mouth, giving him a sterner appearance, and there were lines around his eyes; yet Isabel saw only the love in those remembered grey eyes, the incredulous joy. He was still the Mark she had known so briefly, and with whom she had exchanged a couple of dozen bland letters, passed through her father’s hands.

As for the Reverend Mark Storey, he was transfixed. The young girl he had loved almost from first sight was now an even more beautiful young woman in her wide, flower-decked hat, silk blouse and tailored skirt; what would she think of him? How must he appear to her now?

He was soon left in no doubt of her unchanged heart. She had set down her suitcase and was walking towards him, holding out her gloved hands.

‘
Mark!
’ He prepared to take her hands in his, but she slid naturally into his arms, closely enfolded against his heart, her face uplifted to his, inviting his kiss on her mouth. Her hat came adrift from its pins
and fell to the platform, where it was picked up by a woman who handed it back to her with a reproachful look: such goings-on in public, and with a man of the cloth!

‘Let me take your case, Isabel – there’s a cab waiting outside,’ he said a little breathlessly as she replaced her hat on her tumbling hair. He took her arm to lead her through the barrier and across the wide, thronging concourse of the station.

‘How I’ve lived and longed for this moment, Isabel. I can’t believe that it’s really true – that it’s
you
again at last!’

She looked up at him with shining eyes. ‘But it
is
true, Mark, I’m here and so happy to be with you again!’

The open horse-drawn cab took them quite a long way, at first through scenes that Isabel knew from a day visit with a group from St Peter’s Church, the landmarks of history and the heart of the city. They passed through wide streets with huge shops, theatres and restaurants which Isabel found rather overwhelming; this was the London her sister dreamt of, she thought, the bright lights and the glamour that Grace was determined to be part of one day. They journeyed up Ludgate Hill and passed under the great dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, at which Isabel looked up in awe, which made Mark smile.

‘You’ll find St Barnabas’ Church a little less imposing, my Isabel.’

‘I shall prefer it,’ she answered contentedly.

East of St Paul’s the shops gave way to housing, and the neighbourhoods became noticeably shabbier; soon they came to narrower streets with tightly-packed terraced houses opening directly on to the pavement, and backing against another row of similar dwellings separated by narrow communal yards, across some of which lines of washing were hung. Women stood talking outside small butchers’ and grocers’ shops, and a group of children, some with no shoes, gathered round a lamp post, yelling up at two boys who had climbed it. There were a number of public houses, some with a jug and bottle door, and Isabel knew that premises with the three balls sign were pawnshops.

‘This is my parish, Isabel,’ said Mark quietly. ‘I came here as curate, and now I’m its vicar. It’s a long way from North Camp and St Peter’s, and I shall quite understand if you do not want to make your home here. One day I’ll be transferred to another parish, but that may not be for—’

‘Hush, Mark,’ she interrupted, holding up her gloved hand. ‘You’ve told me so much about this place in your letters, and haven’t I told you how much I’ve longed to share it with you, and help serve these people as you do? I want to be where you are, Mark, haven’t I written that often enough?’

He could only nod and squeeze her hand, for he could not trust himself to speak. She pointed to a
church spire a couple of streets away.

‘Is that St Barnabas’ over there?’ she asked.

‘Yes, that’s my church and this is Old Nichol Street, sometimes called Old Nick’s Street, not without reason,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Go on a little further, driver, into Ainsworth Road, and it’s number thirty-seven – and oh, there’s Mrs Clements at her door, bless her, waiting for us!’

Number thirty-seven was one of a long terraced row, with gleaming windows and a well-scrubbed white doorstep. Mrs Clements was a neatly dressed woman of about fifty, in a black blouse and skirt, her greying hair drawn back into a bun on the crown of her head, fastened with two large tortoiseshell pins. Her eyes softened at the sight of Mark, but she looked questioningly at Isabel, as if wondering whether to shake her hand or curtsey.

‘Here she is, Mrs Clements – Miss Isabel Munday who is visiting our parish for the weekend,’ said Mark with easy familiarity as he helped Isabel down with her suitcase. ‘Mrs Clements is the mainstay of St Barnabas’, Isabel, a lady I can always rely on in difficult times!’

‘Good afternoon, Miss Munday, very pleased to meet yer,’ said the reliable lady in an unmistakable London accent. She held out her hand. ‘It’ll be till Monday afternoon, then?’

Isabel nodded and smiled. ‘Yes, I’ll be staying until then. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs Clements.’

‘Well, ye’d better come in. I’ve put the kettle on, and the front room’s ready.’

‘I’ll take Miss Munday’s case up to her room, shall I?’ asked Mark.

‘Certainly not, Mr Storey! Clements’ll carry that up for her,’ replied the lady, clearly shocked at the very idea of him entering the bedroom of a female guest. She led them both into a small, rather overfurnished front parlour, and Mark smiled at this sign of respect; front parlours were only used on very special occasions.

To Isabel the room felt cold and unlived-in. She sat down on an armchair and accepted a cup of tea from Mrs Clements.

‘What time d’yer want yer tea, Miss Munday?’

The term
tea
was also used in the Munday household to denote the evening meal, and Isabel hesitated; Mark broke in to explain what he had planned.

‘When Miss Munday’s seen her room and has settled in, I’d like to show her over the church, Mrs Clements.’

‘What, before she’s had her tea, Mr Storey?’

‘Yes, please, if it won’t inconvenience you.’

‘Right, when she’s ready I’ll bring her over.’

Isabel was about to say that she could make her own way to the church, but Mark silently placed a finger over his mouth. When Isabel had drunk her tea, seen her room and freshened up at the wash bowl on a marble-topped stand, Mrs Clements put on a hat
and jacket and escorted her over to the small,
soot-bricked
vicarage. She rapped on the brass knocker, and when a smiling Mark appeared to take Isabel over to the church, Mrs Clements followed them; while he pointed out objects of interest to Isabel, Mrs Clements sat herself down in a pew at the back. When the couple reached the altar rail and were out of earshot, Mark whispered an explanation.

‘She’s a good-hearted, hard-working soul, Isabel, and as concerned for my reputation as she is for yours,’ he said with a smile.

Isabel smiled back, but uncomprehendingly. ‘How do you mean, Mark?’